Deer & Deer Hunting Forums: White Tail Deer Hunting Forum

I HAVE BEEN USING A 7400 REM 30-06 FOR YEARS, LATELY I HAVE FOUND THE RECOIL TO MUCH. (GETTING OLD) SO I AM LOOKING FOR SOMETHING WITH LESS RECOIL. I HAVE BEEN THINKING OF A 308 OR 7MM- 08. WILL THEY GIVE LESS RECOIL.WILL THEY HANDLE BLACK BEARS OR ELK. WHAT WILL BE A GOOD CHOICE AS FAR AS MAKER IS CONCERNED. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. JOHN

7mm-08 or .308 will have less recoil than a .30-06, and I would not hunt bears or elk with either. There is a reason it has less recoil, it is because it has less energy at the other (bullet) end too. Less energy = less killing power. Either is good for deer sized animals.

Sure, you will find someone who will tell you that you can kill an elk or bear with either caliber, but then again you could probably kill a Grizzly with a .22 long rifle if you shot him in the ear.

Manufacturer is up to the buyer. I like Browning personally. Remington's are a good choice too. Someone else will tell you Weatherby, Savage, Ruger. You name it, someone will recommend it. Good luck, but keep the CAPS LOCK key in the OFF position.

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Any excuse will do me for buying a new deer rifle. However, if you still like the 7400, try some Remington Managed-Recoil 30-06 loads. You might be surprised.

You might also be interested in jumping into reloading. Recoil reduction was the major reason why I got into it. By using a powder like Hodgdon H4895, and using 150 grain bullets, I was able to find a 30-06 load that was still deadly on deer, but was light enough that my 9 yr old son could shoot comfortably. I do pretty much the same thing now with my 308 WIN, 35 Whelen, and 7.62X54R Mosin Nagants. It's amazing how much recoil you can take out of a load by reducing it 8% or so off the max. Those first 30-06 loads I cooked up for Mooseboy were still able to cycle my Remington 742 and M1 Garand with no problem.

BTW: if you get a 308 WIN, do not expect less recoil. There may be more. For one thing, you are shooting a gas-operated semi-auto. A good part of the recoil goes into cycling the action-- about 15%. The recoil on 308 WIN and 30-06 are roughly the same. If you buy a bolt-action in 308 WIN, the felt recoil will be actually more. Additionally, the 7400 is a fairly heavy gun. The big difference between a 30-06 and 308Win is the length of the action. Shorter receiver means less metal. Less metal means less weight. Less weight means more recoil. This is why I warn everyone away from short magnum actions for deer. Unless you're trying to lose weight to deal with the rigors of higher altitude, a little extra weight on your rifle means a lot less recoil.

My Girlfriend, KYHillChick, wanted to get into shooting. I bought her a 30-06. She found the 30-06 recoil to be acceptable in a big heavy M1 Garand, but when I put her in a bolt-action that was 2 lbs lighter, she developed a flinch. It is a rifle that will never see a life beyond the bench, so weight was no problem. My solution was to put 7 lbs of lead in the stock. Now she has a 15 lb gun that has negligible recoil. Everyone who shoots it laughs, because what all the lead does is cause almost no initial recoil. There is a noticeable interval after the blast and then the shoulder gets moved back firmly a few milliseconds later.

If you are not into reloading, I can also suggest a couple of chamberings you may like. 7mm08 is a good one. The 300 Savage is also a good choice-- it's loads are lighter than the 308 WIN, but it still delivers a decent punch on a deer at 200 yards. I like 300 Savage so much that I took my Savage 99 in 308 WIN and downloaded the round to match the 300 Savage in performance. That is now my GOTO rifle for whitetail out of a treestand. 243 WIN is another round that folks seem to love, but I think of it more as a varmint round.

I prefer the 6.5X55. Several years ago I did a study on all the commonly used rifle cartridges looking for the best performance for the related recoil. The .280 Remington was in there, the .300 Savage was in near the top. However, the 6.5X55 Swede was IT. The .260 Remington was also in there, as was the .257 Roberts. I have shot all these at one time or the other. All of these will kill deer under normal hunting conditions. Remember this study was based on a strict ratio of something like TKO (Taylor Knock-out) vs. felt recoil. Some of these cartridges I mentioned have low TKO, but also phenomenally low felt recoil. You may be able to take a higher recoil value and therefore be able to put a bit more punch downrange.
EDIT: (I went back and looked and found the results. I was usuing a derivative of the TKO formula called the Beker KOV)

How did the 30-06 fare in the study? As I remember, it was always a contender, no matter how I set up the study. The fact that it is regarded as the universally general all-purpose cartridge is borne out. There is always something that will do better than the '06 given a specific set of criteria, but no cartridge does it all so well.
EDIT: Here's a link to the stuff from my weblog in [url=http://blackholecoffeehouse.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html]February, 2005. [/url]
As to the elk and bear part, the '06 will do well on all North American game. Some of the cartridges I've mentioned won't. Unless you plan on selling the 7400, that'll make a good elk/bear gun, and then concentrate on a low-recoil deer gun.

Hi thankyou for the info, actually I have the rem 7400& 7600 pump both with 18/12" barrels with that OK out west for elk or are the barrels to short. I shoot 180gr core locs, if I change to 150gr bullets would I get a reduction in recoil. Thankyou. JOHN

Yes. 150 grainers will probably give a reduction in recoil over 180's, as long as bunch of other things are kept equal. It's the basic Force= MassXAccelleration equation going both directions--towards your shoulder and out the barrel. If you lower the mass of the bullet and keep the accelleration the same, the force is lowered.

Here's a program to download
[url=http://www.huntingnut.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3]
POINTBLANK[/url]

It's free. It has a calculator for recoil. Use the data from the Remington website or the back of your ammo box to put in what you need to calculate recoil. If you don't know how many grains of powder, you can guess at a number like 50 grains-- it's not as critical as other parts of the calculation.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

The Remington Managed Recoil loads, are just taking advantage of what reloaders have known for a long time: you can reduce pressure considerably without sacrificing too much velocity. A medium burning powder like Hodgdon H4895 or IMR 4895, BL-C(2), or Varget reduced slightly, can deliver a reasonable velocity and a reasonable a KE downrange.

Normally rifle ammo is always sold by it's velocity and kinetic energy. Everyone wants to squeeze those last few FPS and ft/lbs out of a cartridge without blowing up the rifle. This is true with a lot of reloaders as well. If you go the other way, and maximize for recoil, you can make a nice round that is not pushing the envelope, but still delivers a kill. It also can give you a more consistent, more accurate, and cheaper round.

Also remember that most of these hotter than hot loads people talk about only begin to show their differences out past 200 or 300 yards or more. I bet you do most of your hunting for whitetail inside 100 yards, right? Inside 200 yards, most whitetail cartridges are still quite deadly even if you take 10% of the powder out of them. The rest is overkill and it manifests itself to you as recoil without any benefit.

No, I'm not trying to say a full house 300 Win Mag or a 300 WSM load is stupid for deer. However, I am saying a 300 Savage will kill them just as dead at normal ranges. Of course I'm talking in broad generalities here. The trick is to start plugging in real data and looking at the differences. I think you'll be surprised. It will certainly make you think twice before you go blowing big bucks on Ultra-Extreme-Super-Duper shoulder-crunching loads for deer that are going to be shot at 50 yards out of a treestand.

Thank you for the info. I think I have decided on a 7mm-08 for deer huting either rem 7 in 20" or 22" barrells, or maybe a ruger. I have a chance to go to Wyoming next year for whitetail& mule deer. Will the 7mm-08 be heavy enough for mule deer. What is a better make remington or ruger. thanks for all the information. JOHN

7mm-08 is a fine choice and should be adequate for mulies as well. I like a 3-position safety, so my bias would be towards the Ruger. A 3-position safety allows you to work the bolt to unload the rifle without any chance of the trigger setting off a round. The Remington has a 2-position safety, and you need to keep it immaculate, or there is a chance of the gun going off as you are closing the bolt-- rare, but it happens.

My wife has a Savage with the 3-position tang safety, and I think it's a wonderful rifle. Of the 3, right now, I'd give the edge to the Savage over the others due to the Accu-trigger. A similar trigger on a Remington 700 would be a $70 aftermarket add-on.

Unless you are absolutely set on buying a new rifle, how about making the rifle you have kick less? You don't need to change ammo either. 2 easy steps you can take is adding a Mercury kick suppressor and adding a better recoil pad like a Limb Saver. I recently did both to my Mossberg 835 3.5" 12 ga for under $100 and has made that beast much more enjoyable to shoot. I am seriously thinking about adding a kick suppressor to my 30-06 single shot and maybe even a Limbsaver pad too just because I can and I'm also getting old.lol
The mercury kick suppressor is fairly easy to install yourself, all you need is a drill, drill bit, screw, screw bit, piece of wood dowel and some tape. Everything you do is hidden by the butt pad, won't change the looks of the gun at all. You can also take it back out, keep it for the next gun if you want.
If you really like the old 30-06 you can also take it in to a good gunsmith where there are several more expensive options to make your gun more accurate and kick less. I'd start with these 2 cheaper options first. I think a Breako Mercury suppressor and/or Limbsaver pad would do the trick for you. Each cost under $50 and can do yourself. Limbsaver has excellent customer support to make sure you get the right size pad. Order dirrect from them is the way to go. They'll email printable patterns or what ever it takes. They got mine right the first time, fits better than the stock pad did and my gun stock wasn't on the list, the pad that fit was made for a different brand gun. I usually don't have that kind of luck. lol
I can't fault anyone for wanting a new gun. It's probably a good time to go get a semi auto, it maybe now or never, but if you're planning to keep the old gun anyways, might as well sweaten it up a little.

"Go afield with a good attitude, with respect for the wildlife you hunt and for the forest and fields in which you walk. Immerse yourself in the outdoor experience. It will cleanse your soul and make you a better person." - Fred Bear